Lahore’s Children’s Hospital replaces sick baby boy with dead girl

LAHORE: In what appeared to be a disturbing incident, the Children’s Hospital has reportedly exchanged a “male infant with a dead baby girl” and handed over the body to the parents, making them move to the police for action against the medics for ‘committing a crime’.

An official said that a four-day-old sick baby boy was brought by his parents to the hospital some days back for treatment.

During the treatment, he said, the doctors had declared that the baby died of complications and handed over his body to his father, Irfan, who later took it to his native city Gujranwala for burial.

The official said the matter took a surprise turn when Irfan came back along with the body of a baby girl and told the hospital administration that he had brought his son to the Children’s Hospital for treatment instead of the girl.

The citizen’s claim left the hospital authorities in utter shock and they immediately issued directions to inquire into the matter. Later, it transpired that the baby boy had reportedly gone ‘missing’, the official said.

In his complaint filed with the Naseerabad police station, he unveiled the above-mentioned story saying that the hospital management replaced his baby boy with the dead body of the girl.

He asked the police to lodge a case against the hospital’s managerial officials and the doctors concerned for committing the crime and demanded the recovery of his son. Meanwhile, the Punjab Health Department took notice of the incident and constituted an inquiry committee comprising three senior doctors of the Children’s Hospital.

The committee was directed to probe the matter at the earliest and submit a report to bring facts to the public.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2024